the finish line

Kids at the finish line at a countryside Naadam celebration.

Take a look at their feet - notice anything?


Naadam is the big festival in the Mongolian summer, where men display their strengths and their buttocks in the three manly events: wrestling, horseracing, and archery.

The events are certainly manly, but the jockeys in the horse races are kids, and women are allowed to participate in two of the events : archery and horse racing.

The legend has it that a woman once won a series of wrestling competitions, and ever since, the costumes that wrestlers wear are open in the front to prevent such a scandal from reoccurring.